October 09, 2017 - 7:40 AM
LONDON - A British man who tried to build a bomb from a pressure cooker and Christmas tree lights after becoming radicalized online has been sentenced to at least 15 years in prison.
Prosecutors say 29-year-old Zahid Hussain built the device at his parents' house in Birmingham, central England, after viewing hundreds of images from the Islamic State group.
He packed it with shrapnel and made detonators from strings of lights, but prosecutors said the bomb was not viable.
Hussain was convicted in May of preparing an act of terrorism.
Judge Nigel Sweeney said Monday at Winchester Crown Court in southern England that Hussain suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, but that the main driver of his crime was his "voluntary bedroom radicalization."
He jailed Hussain with no chance of parole for 15 years.
News from © The Associated Press, 2017